Archive for December, 2007
Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
Prabhupada’s Palace Under The Full Moon
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Monday, December 24th, 2007
Christmas Meditation
“Today, eternity enters in time, and time, sanctified, is caught up into eternity. Today, Christ, the Eternal Word of the Father, Who was in the beginning with the Father, in Whom all things were made, by Whom all things consist, enters into the world which He created in order to reclaim souls […]
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Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
Chopping Wood
Can’t write much today — it is warm, sunny and the yard is dry. These are perfect conditions for restocking the inside the house and the porch firewood caches.
That means splitting wood to chunk and cooking wood size then wheelbarrowing it to the forward operating positions. When we get everything filled up, we have […]
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Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
Jeopardy
(fourth installement adapted from the first chapter of Krishna book
lyrics and music by Devananda Pandit das)
When the first son was born, Vasudeva kept his word.
He took the new born child to Kamsa and was not disturbed.
Though it was painful he was a man of honor and fame,
He could never break a promise and spoil the […]
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Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
Riding the ’super-highway’ back to Godhead
Last Saturday, we witnessed Meghan’s initiation by H.H. Hridayananda das Goswami. Her spiritual name is Maha Lakshmi devi dasi! A most auspicious event attended by several Senior Prabhupada disciples including: Malati devi dasi, Amoghalila dasa, G…
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Friday, December 21st, 2007
Guru As Rock Star
There is an article on Dandavats that any aspiring devotee would be well advised to read. It starts slowly and is philosophically weighty at the beginning, but once it gets wound up it really starts hitting some nails on the head:
When guru worship gets sentimental
The author mentions […]
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Thursday, December 20th, 2007
New Year’s Eve Party at Vidya and Gosh’s
We will be having our traditional New Year’s Eve party again this year. It runs from around 6 pm to midnight and is a family friendly, drug and alcohol free, children welcome party.
It is a potluck party so bring something to share, but if you get jammed up and can’t, come anyway. If […]
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Thursday, December 20th, 2007
Mahabharata: Work-In-Progress
For Gita Jayanti I’d like to share my opening of Mahabharata, (Copyrighted, 2007). I’ve been working on the manuscript over the last couple of years. It’s a fast paced, cinematic rendition and is a product of my work in the field of storytelling. Actually, my book is geared toward the storytelling community. Storytelling as an art form is lean and action driven. For a storyteller too much description or embellishment is gratuitous and indulgent. A story unfolds like a Zen painting where so much is suggested by one stroke of the brush.
Last year I was requested to perform a little of Mahabharata at an evening event for the 1000 attendees of the National Storytelling Conference and the response was amazing. In 2005 I received a West Virginia Artist Fellowship Award for literature and my work in storytelling and I’ve gotten several endorsements from that. So I’ve built some momentum and right now I’m half way through the manuscript which, when completed, will clock in at less than 200 pages. In the opening below, a variety of personalities and elements are introduced. For me, it’s sort of an adventure to put it all together and make it available for an American readership. But the work can only be completed, and my efforts can only be successful, with the blessings of the Vaisnavas.
The Mahabharata
“Your sons and their forces are ready, as ready as they’ll ever be,” Sanjaya told the blind king. Dhritarastra listened with both expectancy and with regret, hovering in a world of his own, molded of past and future. If only he had listened to Vidura, it would not have come to this. He feared for his sons. What would happen to them now? If he could, he would make Duryodhan give back all the land he had taken from the Pandavas. But of all his sons, Duryodhan, had always been beyond his control. Surely, Providence would now have its way.
Sanjaya sat in the royal palace at Hastinapura by the side of his king. Though his gaze was drawn within, he looked far beyond the city’s streets and walls. With Vyasa’s gift of mystic vision, Sanjaya beheld the valley of Kurushetra over a hundred miles away. There, as armies prepared for battle, Sanjaya could observe every aspect, and scan every detail. He could hear any conversation and even know someone’s thoughts.
“This is quite unusual,” Sanjaya continued, and then he paused, looking on in disbelief. Dhritarastra impatiently stamped his jeweled cane for attention. “What is it?” he insisted on knowing.
“Yudhisthira has stepped off his chariot. He proceeds eastward across the valley, toward your sons, on foot and unarmed.”
“Unarmed? Does he mean to seek a truce or to surrender?” Dhritarastra inquired. His mind hoped against hope. Could there still be time for reconciliation, for peace?
Yudhisthira walked toward the expanse of enemy warriors. The morning air was crisp. The army Yudhisthira beheld far outnumbered his own. In the distant ranks he spied Bhismadev’s splendid chariot, decorated with a variety of weapons, and headed straight for it. Bhismadev was the respected grandsire of the dynasty, the eldest and wisest. He was also Yudhisthira’s ever well wisher and like a father to him. Even now Bhismadev observed the solitary figure with pride. Yudhisthira took each step with such ease and grace. Bhismadev knew the last thing Yudhisthira wanted was this fight.
Bhismadev, in turn, was surrounded by men impatient for battle, for blood and glory, for the sweet taste of victory. Duryodhan, Dusasana, Karna, Sakuni, and Ashwattama. They had waited years for this moment. The horses drawing their chariots whinnied in anticipation. The nobles snickered upon seeing Yudhisthira approach. Maybe this would be easier than they thought. Had Yudhisthira lost his nerve when he saw the sight of their magnificent forces? After all, he had retreated to the forest to spend thirteen years in exile without a word of complaint.
Bhismadev’s mind drifted away from the moment at hand and settled into the past. How had he let it come to this? A civil war that would rip apart his dynasty. It was the one thing he sought all his life to avoid. His mind wandered back to his youth, and to his father, King Santanu.
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Thursday, December 20th, 2007
My India Diary-Part 4
Day 9 12/14 VrndavanaI think the thing we all can agree on so far is that it’s pretty hard not to think of Krsna when we’re here. It’s hard to put into words. For myself, I’ve never been so excited to chant all my rounds, all at once, and then some.HH …
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Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
Academic Conference Held In New Vrindaban
The Second Annual Conference of the ISKCON Academy of Arts and Sciences was held this past weekend in New Vrindaban. The theme of the conference was “ISKCON Scholarship and the World: Academic and Cultural Contributions.”
About 30 devotee scholars attended including well known devotees like Ravindra Svarupa das, Hridayananda das Goswami, Sadaputa das, and Garuda das. […]
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Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
Gita Jayanti!
I hope all of you have a great Gita Jayanti. Im taking the “Chinese Bus” tomorrow after early morning Bikrams from Philly to NYC. I’ll visit Eddie Sterns Ashtanga Yoga Studio to assist with their Gita Jayanti celebration.
http://www.ayny.org/puja.php
The studio cares for two altars. Sri Ganesha is cared for by Eddie Stern and Sri Sri Radha Damodar is cared for by HG Kaustubha Prabhu. Since both the Transcriber and the Speaker of Bhagavad Gita reside in the studio they are holding a nice celebration in honor of Srimad Bhagavad Gita. There is word that both HG Vaishesika Prabhu and HG Dravida Prabhu will be there. If anyone is in the NYC area please stop in!
Recently I have been in great appreciation for the New Translation of Bhagavad Gita by Garuda Prabhu(ACBSP). I highly recommend it for personal reading and gift giving. The essays in the back are very enlightening. Purchase it on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-Beloved-Lords-Secret/dp/0060754257/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198074245&sr=1-1
If you are looking for music to inspire you or someone else to read Bhagavad Gita purchase the song “Sojourn of Arjuna” from Bela Fleck via the Itunes Store. 
http://www.apple.com/search/ipoditunes/?q=bela+fleck+sojourn+of+arjuna
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Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
All They Are Saying Is Give Happiness A Chance
From The New York Times editorial page:(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/opinion/12mon4.html);
By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: November 12, 2007
The framers of the Declaration of Independence evidently believed that happiness could be achieved, putting its pursuit up there alongside the unalienable rights to life and liberty. Though governments since then have seen life and liberty as deserving of vigorous protection, for all the public policies aimed at increasing economic growth, people have been left to sort out their happiness.
This is an unfortunate omission. Despite all the wealth we have accumulated — increased life expectancy, central heating, plasma TVs and venti-white-chocolate-mocha Frappuccinos — true happiness has lagged our prosperity. As Bobby Kennedy said in a speech at the University of Kansas in March 1968, the nation’s gross national product measures everything “except that which makes life worthwhile.”
The era of laissez-faire happiness might be coming to an end. Some prominent economists and psychologists are looking into ways to measure happiness to draw it into the public policy realm. Thirty years from now, reducing unhappiness could become another target of policy, like cutting poverty.
“This is another outcome that we should be concerned about,” said Alan Krueger, a professor of economics at Princeton who is working to develop a measure of happiness that could be used with other economic indicators. “Just like G.D.P.”
It might be a bit of a political challenge to define happiness as a legitimate policy objective. Imagine the Republican outrage when the umpteenth tax cut didn’t do the trick. Democrats would likely slam the effort as regressive, distracting from efforts to improve the lot of the less fortunate by more conventional measures — like income.
Happiness is clearly real, related to objective measures of well-being. Happier people have lower blood pressure and get fewer colds. But using it to guide policy could be tricky. Not least because we don’t quite understand why it behaves the way it does. Men are unhappiest at almost 50, and women at just after 45. Paraplegics are not unhappier than healthy people. People who live with teenagers are the unhappiest of all.
Happiness seems fairly cheap to manipulate. In one experiment, subjects were asked to answer a questionnaire about personal satisfaction after Xeroxing a sheet of paper. Those who found a dime lying on the Xerox machine reported substantially higher satisfaction with their lives.
Most disconcerting, happiness seems to have little relation to economic achievement, which we have historically understood as the driver of well-being. A notorious study in 1974 found that despite some 30 years worth of stellar economic growth, Americans were no happier than they were at the end of World War II. A more recent study found that life satisfaction in China declined between 1994 and 2007, a period in which average real incomes grew by 250 percent.
Happiness, it appears, adapts. It’s true that the rich are happier, on average, than the poor. But while money boosts happiness, the effect doesn’t last. We just become envious of a new, richer set of people than before. Satisfaction soon settles back to its prior level, as we adapt to changed circumstances and set our expectations to a higher level.
Despite happiness’ apparently Sisyphean nature, there may be ways to increase satisfaction over the long term. While the extra happiness derived from a raise or a winning lottery ticket might be fleeting, studies have found that the happiness people derive from free time or social interaction is less susceptible to comparisons with other people around them. Nonmonetary rewards — like more vacations, or more time with friends or family — are likely to produce more lasting changes in satisfaction.
This swings the door wide open for government intervention. On a small scale, congestion taxes to encourage people to carpool would reduce the distress of the solo morning commute, which apparently drives people nuts.
More broadly, if the object of public policy is to maximize society’s well-being, more attention should be placed on fostering social interactions and less on accumulating wealth. If growing incomes are not increasing happiness, perhaps we should tax incomes more to force us to devote less time and energy to the endeavor and focus instead on the more satisfying pursuit of leisure. One thing seems certain, lining up every policy incentive to strive for higher and higher incomes is just going to make us all miserable. Happiness is one of the things that money just can’t buy.
“One whose happiness is within, who is active within, who rejoices within and is illumined within is actually the perfect mystic. He is liberated, and ultimately he attains the Supreme.” Gita 5:24
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Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
All They Are Saying Is Give Happiness A Chance
(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/opinion/12mon4.html);
By EDUARDO PORTER
Published: November 12, 2007
The framers of the Declaration of Independence evidently believed that happiness could be achieved, putting its pursuit up there alongside the unalienable rights to life and liberty. Though governments since then have seen life and liberty as deserving of vigorous protection, for all the public policies aimed at increasing economic growth, people have been left to sort out their happiness.
This is an unfortunate omission. Despite all the wealth we have accumulated — increased life expectancy, central heating, plasma TVs and venti-white-chocolate-mocha Frappuccinos — true happiness has lagged our prosperity. As Bobby Kennedy said in a speech at the University of Kansas in March 1968, the nation’s gross national product measures everything “except that which makes life worthwhile.”
The era of laissez-faire happiness might be coming to an end. Some prominent economists and psychologists are looking into ways to measure happiness to draw it into the public policy realm. Thirty years from now, reducing unhappiness could become another target of policy, like cutting poverty.
“This is another outcome that we should be concerned about,” said Alan Krueger, a professor of economics at Princeton who is working to develop a measure of happiness that could be used with other economic indicators. “Just like G.D.P.”
It might be a bit of a political challenge to define happiness as a legitimate policy objective. Imagine the Republican outrage when the umpteenth tax cut didn’t do the trick. Democrats would likely slam the effort as regressive, distracting from efforts to improve the lot of the less fortunate by more conventional measures — like income.
Happiness is clearly real, related to objective measures of well-being. Happier people have lower blood pressure and get fewer colds. But using it to guide policy could be tricky. Not least because we don’t quite understand why it behaves the way it does. Men are unhappiest at almost 50, and women at just after 45. Paraplegics are not unhappier than healthy people. People who live with teenagers are the unhappiest of all.
Happiness seems fairly cheap to manipulate. In one experiment, subjects were asked to answer a questionnaire about personal satisfaction after Xeroxing a sheet of paper. Those who found a dime lying on the Xerox machine reported substantially higher satisfaction with their lives.
Most disconcerting, happiness seems to have little relation to economic achievement, which we have historically understood as the driver of well-being. A notorious study in 1974 found that despite some 30 years worth of stellar economic growth, Americans were no happier than they were at the end of World War II. A more recent study found that life satisfaction in China declined between 1994 and 2007, a period in which average real incomes grew by 250 percent.
Happiness, it appears, adapts. It’s true that the rich are happier, on average, than the poor. But while money boosts happiness, the effect doesn’t last. We just become envious of a new, richer set of people than before. Satisfaction soon settles back to its prior level, as we adapt to changed circumstances and set our expectations to a higher level.
Despite happiness’ apparently Sisyphean nature, there may be ways to increase satisfaction over the long term. While the extra happiness derived from a raise or a winning lottery ticket might be fleeting, studies have found that the happiness people derive from free time or social interaction is less susceptible to comparisons with other people around them. Nonmonetary rewards — like more vacations, or more time with friends or family — are likely to produce more lasting changes in satisfaction.
This swings the door wide open for government intervention. On a small scale, congestion taxes to encourage people to carpool would reduce the distress of the solo morning commute, which apparently drives people nuts.
More broadly, if the object of public policy is to maximize society’s well-being, more attention should be placed on fostering social interactions and less on accumulating wealth. If growing incomes are not increasing happiness, perhaps we should tax incomes more to force us to devote less time and energy to the endeavor and focus instead on the more satisfying pursuit of leisure. One thing seems certain, lining up every policy incentive to strive for higher and higher incomes is just going to make us all miserable. Happiness is one of the things that money just can’t buy.
“One whose happiness is within, who is actice within, who rejoices within and is illumined within is actually the perfect mystic. He is liberated, and ultimately he attains the supreme.” Gita 5:24
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Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
Lord Nrisimhadev Installed
by Hrishikesh
More altars were built and more deities were sculpted and molded. Bhagavatananda Das sculpted two nine-foot tall bas-relief statues of Jaya and Vijaya, the four-armed gatekeepers of Vaikuntha who hold the four symbols of Vishnu: conchshell, disc, club, and lotus flower, which were installed adjacent to the front doors of the temple.
On January 6, […]
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Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
Christmas Time
On the car radio
“Clouds” by Debussy
full moon lights the predawn
consciousness moves outward
Remembering the richly stained wood mantel
where bulging stockings hung Christmas morning.
Later, by the warm glow of the fireplace, watching
tightly rolled wrapping paper burning in colored hues.
At noon the sliding six foot wide wooden door
opened to the dining room where the good table,
lengthened by […]